15th September 1998 Archive

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Senior Intel executive confirms 370-pin socket by year end

Socket design will displace Slot One for Celerons

Albert Yu, senior vice president of Intel’s microprocessor products group, said today that the 370-pin socket version of the Celeron is now likely to arrive towards the end of the year. Speaking on the eve of Intel’s Developers Forum, Yu said that the primary reason for moving to the socket was because of cost considerations. …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 00:41
Intel says PCI-X last increment of bus

Next bus will last industry for 30 years

Intel has given a qualified welcome to the PCI-X specification proposed by IBM, Compaq and HP, but said that it was likely to be the last iteration of PCI. Mitch Schultz, head of IO initiatives at Intel US, said that the company had only just received the proposed specification. "In general our view is that it’s potentially very …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 00:55
IE 5? What a surprise!!

Beta kept under tight wraps

Details have emerged about the nature of Internet Explorer 5.0, understood to be almost identical with Windows NT 5.0. The product, given in its preliminary beta versions to select developers and press, will use a multimedia rich approach to deliver 3D effects, according to one developer today. Intel and Microsoft are understood …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 06:36
Quark abandons Adobe bid

Warnock optimistic as Quark credibility gap saves his skin

Quark has dropped its bid for Adobe, following general scepticism and widespread user hostility. But the bid was never very credible -- Quark is a quarter of Adobe's size and did not suggest a price other than a premium over the market valuation (implying at least $2 billion would be needed). Nor did Quark sign up a financial …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 08:52
More memos trouble Microsoft as case delayed again

Bill's men have been leveraging the OS likee crazy, apparently...

The twice-postponed Microsoft antitrust case has been postponed again to 15 October, but Microsoft - as was widely predicted - did not succeed in getting the case dismissed. In a 54-page ruling, Judge Jackson has released some fascinating glimpses of the Microsoft internal emails that had previously been filed under seal. …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 08:53
Novell says shipped NetWare 5 early

And the assault on NT begins in earnest

Novell has been shipping NetWare 5 ahead of schedule, and perhaps a year ahead of NT5. Yesterday Novell announced that a dozen or so Fortune 500 companies had already gone live with the product, which at last has the features that were missing from NetWare 4. NetWare 5 uses TCP/IP as a native protocol, and includes with …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 09:19
Time Warner moves into Web retail

Optimism triumphs over experience as giant joins throng

Time Warner made its move yesterday to become a Web retailer. Various divisions such as Warner Brothers' Studio Stores already have a Web presence, but the intention is to capitalise on the one billion page-views a month that TW's Pathfinder site receives. The company has not found the magic touch in the past, having established …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 11:39
Citibank buys into MS online billing venture

MSFDC now renamed Transpoint, offering online payment systems

Citibank has bought into the clumsily-named MSFDC(Microsoft and First Data Corporation) joint venture, now renamed TransPoint, to corner the market for Internet bill paying. The undisclosed stake is a minority one, with the other partners having an equal share. The service is expected to go live later this year. Some 19 billion …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 11:43
Apple may seek help to meet iMac demand

Vendors' supply issues get third-parties sniffing out opportunities

Apple is believed to be considering outsourcing iMac production following the huge demand for the new consumer-oriented computer, according to Eugene Sapp, president of COO of SCI Systems, one of the world's largest contract manufacturers. Speaking at a NationsBanc Montgomery Securities investment conference in San Francisco, …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 12:20
Microsoft takes top slot in capitalisation

Finally passes GE to be worth cool $261.2 billion

Yesterday, Microsoft passed GE as the US stock with the greatest market capitalisation -- $261.2 billion, compared with GE's $257.4 billion. The next IT stocks, in 7th and 9th place respectively, are Intel ($144.2billion) and IBM (120.5 billion). BillG's share yesterday was around $57 billion. Symantec had a setback, falling …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 12:56
Retail systems poised at crossroads

But complexity of upgrade is slowing them -- report

Retail information technology systems are currently poised at a crossroads as organisations consider the sheer complexity of the task ahead of them, according to a new study by the Aberdeen Group. Information Technology in the Retail Sector: The Integration Imperative, argues that companies who were pioneers with their earlier …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 14:47
Storming performance from Psion Dacom

Chalks up 79 per cent growth in first half

Psion Dacom reported 79 per cent sales growth in the first half of 1998. Sales rose to $40.5 million, up from $22.6 million in the same period last year. The company said that this reflected rapid expansion of all its major markets worldwide, and was optimistic about its future prospects. Psion Dacom has established partnerships …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 14:49
NatSemi signs up for Tut HomeRun

$500 Home networked PCs ahoy...

National Semiconductor is preparing for an explosion in home networking by licensing Tut Systems' HomeRun technology for use on its single-chip Ethernet physical layer transceiver solution. Financial details were not released. Tut's system is intended to use existing phone cabling in the home to run networks. Analysts estimate …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 14:51
Intel pushes thin server ‘appliances’

Cheap, single-purpose appliance servers ahoy...

Intel is targeting the burgeoning small business sector with a new line of thin server appliance products that it says will make it easy and cheap to network between two and 50 PCs. The products will be sold as part of Intel's InBusiness product line and will be available this year. Brad Romney, Intel's small business networking …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 14:52
Intel's Barrett outlines PC futures

Security to be built into chips, motherboard

Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel, has opened the Intel Developers Forum in Palm Springs by outlining what he sees as the future of the PC. At the same time he said that there needed to be industry wide initiatives to address technological and security problems. Those include building security into CPUs, chipsets and motherboards to …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 17:08
Katmai out of the bag

Intel's Yu gets roadmap frenzy

Intel has provided sneak details of its processor roadmap up until the year 2001 and has also given additional details of the Katmai instruction set it will introduce early next year. Albert Yu, senior vice president in charge of the microprocessor unit, said that the development of additional instructions in Katmai was driven …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 17:10
Intel thinks intelligent fridge will rule roost in 2005

Smart-alec home PC will tell us how to live lives

Intel has outlined a vision of the future where entire families’ lives will be controlled by a know-it-all PC built into the superstructure of a house. But, perhaps fortunately, it could be as long as seven years before this vision comes to pass. At a demonstration of future technology held at Intel’s Developer Forum today, a …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 22:02
Intel at centre of plan to end DVD theft

Consortium includes major Japanese players

Intel has devised a scheme to prevent people from stealing DVD content from different sources and then replicating them using sophisticated copying systems. The plan, based on the 1394 bus, which is intended to protect content, could put an end to simple chip replacement techniques. Intel, in conjunction with Sony, Toshiba, …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 22:29
Intel’s Basic PC plans could be fatally flawed

Company faces "second best" conundrum

If there are going to be one billion PCs across the planet in the next few years, they’ve got to be a lot cheaper than they are now. This premise is central to Intel’s plans for market segmentation but the concept is also shared by Stan Shih, Acer’s CEO, as well as rival chip companies Cyrix and AMD. This week, at the Intel …

Business 15 Sep 1998, 23:05